Part 25 (1/2)

In maturer life he busied himself with writing memoirs, which formed the chief, almost the only study of Domitian, and of which we may regret that time has deprived us. The portrait of this arch dissembler by his own able hand would be a good set off to the terrible indictment of Tacitus.

Besides the above he was the author of funeral speeches, and, according to Suidas, of a work on the art of rhetoric.

With these literary pretensions it is clear that his discouragement of letters as emperor was due to political reasons. He saw in the free expression of thought or fancy a danger to his throne. And as the abominable system of _delations_ made every chance expression penal, and found treason to the present in all praise of the past, the only resource open to men of letters was to suppress every expression of feeling, and, by silent brooding, to keep pa.s.sion at white heat, so that when it speaks at last it speaks with the concentrated intensity of a Juvenal or a Tacitus.

We might ask how it was that authors did not choose subjects outside the sphere of danger. There were still forms of art and science which had not been worked out. The _Natural History_ of Pliny shows how much remained to be done in fields of great interest. Neither philosophy nor the lighter kinds of poetry could afford matter for provocation. But the answer is easy. The Roman imagination was so narrow, and their constructive talent so restricted, that they felt no desire to travel beyond the regular lines. It seemed as if all had been done that could be done well. History, national and universal, [5] science [6] and philosophy, [7] Greek poetry in all its varied forms, had been brought to perfection by great masters whom it was hopeless to rival. The age of literary production seemed to have been rounded off, and the self-consciousness that could reflect on the new era had not yet had time to arise. Rhetoric, as applied to the expression of political feeling, was the only form which literature cared to take, and that was precisely the form most obnoxious to the government.

Thus it is possible that even had Tiberius been less jealously repressive letters would still have stagnated. The severe strain of the Augustan age brought its inevitable reaction. The simultaneous appearance of so many writers of the first rank rendered necessary an interval during which their works were being digested and their spirit settling down into an integral const.i.tuent of the national mind. By the time thought reawakens, Virgil, Horace, and Livy are already household words, and their works the basis of all literary culture.

In reading the lives of the chief post-Augustan writers we are struck by the fact that many, if not most of them, held offices of state. The desire for peaceful retirement, characteristic of the early Augustans, the contentment with lettered leisure that signalises the poetry of the later Augustans, have both given place to a restless excitement, and to a determination to make the most of literature as an aid to a successful career. Hitherto we have observed two distinct cla.s.ses of writers, and a corresponding double relation of politics and literature. The early poets, and again those of Augustus's era, were not men of affairs, they belonged to the exclusively literary cla.s.s. The great prose writers on the contrary rose to political eminence by political conduct. Literature was with them a relaxation, and served no purpose of worldly aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. Now, however, an unhealthy confusion between the two provinces takes place. A man rises to office through his poems or rhetorical essays. The acquirements of a professor become a pa.s.sport to public life. Seneca and Quintilian are striking and favourable instances of the school door opening into the senate:

”Si fortuna volet fies de rhetore consul.” [8]

But nearly all the chief writers carried their declamatory principles into the serious business of life. This double aspect of their career produced two different types of talent, under one or other of which the great imperial writers may be ranged. Excluding men of the second rank, we have on the one side Lucan, Juvenal, and Tacitus, all whose minds have a strong political bias, the bias of old Rome, which makes them the most powerful though the most prejudiced exponents of their times. Of another kind are Persius, Seneca, and Pliny the elder. Their genius is contemplative and philosophical; and though two of them were much mixed in affairs, their spirit is cosmopolitan rather than national, and their wisdom, though drawn from varied sources, cannot be called political. These six are the representative minds of the period on which we are now entering, and between them reflect nearly all the best and worst features of their age.

Quintilian, Statius, and Pliny the younger, represent a more restricted development; the first of them is the typical rhetorician, but of the better cla.s.s; the second is the brilliant improvisatore and ingenious word-painter; the third the cultivated and amiable but vain, common-place, and dwarfed type of genius which under the Empire took the place of the ”fine gentlemen” of the free Republic.

Writers of this last stamp cannot be expected to show any independent spirit. They are such as in every age would adopt the prevalent fas.h.i.+on, and theorise within the limits prescribed by respectability. While a bad emperor reigns they flatter him; when a good emperor succeeds they flatter him still more by abusing his predecessor; at the same time they are genial, sober, and sensible, adventuring neither the safety of their necks nor of their intellectual reputation.

Such an author comes before us in M. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, the court historian of Tiberius. This well-intentioned but loquacious writer gained his loyalty from an experience of eight years' warfare under Tiberius in various parts of Europe, and the flattery of which he is so lavish was probably sincere. His birth may perhaps be referred to 18 B.C., since his first campaign, under M. Vinicius, to whose son he dedicated his work, took place in the year 1 B.C. Tiberius's sterling qualities as a soldier gained him the friends.h.i.+p of many of his legati, and Velleius was fortunate enough to secure that of Tiberius in return. By his influence he rose through the minor offices to the praetors.h.i.+p (14 A.D.), and soon after set himself to repair the deficiencies of a purely military education by systematic study. The fruit of this labour is the _Abridgment of Roman History_, in two books, a mere rapid survey of the early period, becoming more diffuse as it nears his own time, and treating the life of Tiberius and the events of which he was the centre with considerable fulness. The latter part is preserved entire; of the first book, which closes with the destruction of Carthage, a considerable portion has been lost. As, however, he is not likely to have followed in it any authorities inaccessible to us, the loss is unimportant. For his work generally the authorities he quotes are good--Cato's _Origines_, the _Annales_ of Hortensius, and probably Atticus's abridgment; Cornelius Nepos, and Trogus for foreign, Livy and Sall.u.s.t (of whom he was a great admirer) for national, history. As a recipient and expectant of court favour, he naturally echoed the language of the day. Brutus and Ca.s.sius are for him parricides; Caesar, the divine founder of an era which culminates in the divine Tiberius. [9] So full was he of his master's praises that he intended to write a separate book on the subject, but was prevented by his untimely death. This took place in 31 A.D., when the discovery of Seja.n.u.s's conspiracy caused many suspected to be put to death, and it seems that Velleius was among the number.

His blind partisans.h.i.+p naturally obscures his judgment; but, making allowance for a defect which he does not attempt to conceal, the reader may generally trust him for all matters of fact. His studies were not as a rule deep; but an exception must be made in the case of his account of the Greek colonies in Italy, the dates at which they were founded, and their early relations with Rome. These had never been so clearly treated by any writer, at least among those with whom we are familiar. His mind is not of a high order; he can neither sift evidence nor penetrate to causes; his talents lie in the biographical department, and he has considerable insight into character. His style is not uncla.s.sical so far as the vocabulary goes, but the equable moderation of the Golden Age is replaced by exaggeration, and like all who cultivate artificial brilliancy, he cannot maintain his ambitious level of poetical and pretentious ornament.

The last year referred to in the book is 30 A.D. The dearth of other material gives him additional value. As a historian he takes a low rank; as an abridger he is better, but best of all as a rhetorical anecdotist and painter of character in action.

A better known writer (especially during the Middle Ages) is VALERIUS MAXIMUS, author of the _Facta et Dicta Memorabilia_, in nine books, addressed to Tiberius in a dedication of unexampled servility, [10] and compiled from few though good sources. The object of the work is stated in the preface. It was to save labour for those who desired to fortify their minds with examples of excellence, or increase their knowledge of things worth knowing. The methodical arrangement by subjects, _e.g._, religion, which is divided into religion observed and religion neglected, and instances of both given, first from Roman, then from foreign, history, and so on with all the other subjects, makes Teuffel's suggestion extremely probable, namely, that it was intended for the use of young declaimers, who were thus furnished with instances for all sorts of themes. The constant tendency in the imperial literature to exhaust a subject by a catalogue of every known instance may be traced to these pernicious rhetorical handbooks. If a writer praises temperance, he supplements it by a list of temperate Romans; if he describes a storm, he _puts down_ all he knows about the winds. Uncritical as Valerius is, and void of all thought, he is nevertheless pleasant enough reading for a vacant hour, and if we were not obliged to rate him by a lofty standard, would pa.s.s muster very well. But he is no fit company for men of genius; our only wonder is he should have so long survived. His work was a favourite school-book for junior cla.s.ses, and was epitomised or abridged by Julius Paris in the fourth or fifth century. At the time of this abridgment the so-called tenth book must have been added. Julius Paris's words in his preface to it are, _Liber decimus de praenominibus et similibus_: but various considerations make it certain that Valerius was not the author. [11] Many interesting details were given in it, taken chiefly from Varro; and it is much to be regretted that the entire treatise is not preserved. Besides Paris one t.i.tius Probus retouched the work in a still later age, and a third abstract by Januarius Nepotia.n.u.s is mentioned. This last writer cut out all the padding which Valerius had so largely used (”_dum se ostentat sententiis, locis iactat, fundit excessibus_”), and reduced the work to a bare skeleton of facts.

A much more important writer, one of whose treatises only has reached us, was A. CORNELIUS CELSUS. He stood in the first rank of Roman scientists, was quite encyclopaedic in his learning, and wrote, like Cato, on eloquence, law, farming, medicine, and tactics. There is no doubt that the work on medicine (extending over Books VI.-XIII. of his Encyclopaedia) which we possess, was the best of his writings, but the chapters on agriculture also are highly praised by Columella.

At this time, as Des Etangs remarks, nearly all the knowledge and practice of medicine was in the hands of Greek physicians, and these either freedmen or slaves. Roman pract.i.tioners seem to have inspired less confidence even when they were willing to study. Habits of scientific observation are hereditary; and for centuries the Greeks had studied the conditions of health and the theory of disease, as well as practised the empirical side of the art, and most Romans were well content to leave the whole in their hands.

Celsus tried to attract his countrymen to the pursuit of medicine by pointing out its value and dignity. He commences his work with a history of medical science since its first importation into Greece, and devotes the rest of Book I. to a consideration of dietetics and other prophylactics of disease; the second book treats of general pathology, the third and fourth of special illnesses, the fifth gives remedies and prescriptions, the sixth, seventh, and eighth--the most valuable part of the book--apply themselves chiefly to surgical questions. The value of his work consists in the clear, comprehensive grasp of his subject, and the systematic way in which he expounds its principles. The main points of his theory are still valid; very few essentials need to be rejected; it might still be taken as a popular handbook on the subject. He writes for Roman citizens, and is therefore careful to avoid abstruse terms where plain ones will do, and Greek words where Latin are to be had. The style is bare, but pure and cla.s.sical. An excellent critic says [12]--”Quo saepius eum perlegebam, eo magis me detinuit c.u.m dicendi nitor et brevitas tum perspicacitas iudicii sensusque vorax et ad agendum accommodatus, quibus omnibus genuinam repraesentat n.o.bis civis Romani imaginem.” The text as we have it depends on a single MS. and sadly needs a careful revision; it is interpolated with numerous glosses, both Greek and Latin, which a skilful editor would detect and remove. Among the other treatises in his _Encyclopaedia_, next to that on farming, those on rhetoric and tactics were most popular. The former, however, was superseded by Quintilian, the latter by Vegetius. In philosophy he did not so much criticise other schools as detail his own views with concise eloquence. These views were almost certainly Eclectic, though we know on Quintilian's authority that he followed the two s.e.xtii in many important points. [13]

The other branches of prose composition were almost neglected in this reign. Even rhetoric sank to a low level; the splendid displays of men like Latro, Arellius, and Ovid gave place to the flimsy ostentation of REMMIUS PALAEMON. This dissolute man, who combined the professions of grammarian and rhetorician, possessed an extraordinary apt.i.tude for fluent harangue, but soon confined his attention to grammatical studies, in which he rose to the position of an authority. Suetonius says he was born a slave, and that while conducting his young master to school he learnt something of literature, was liberated, and set up a school in Rome, where he rose to the top of his profession. Although infamous for his abandoned profligacy, and stigmatized by Tiberius and Claudius as utterly unfit to have charge of the young, he managed to secure a very large number of pupils by his persuasive manner, and the excellence of his tutorial method. His memory was prodigious, his eloquence seductive, and a power of extempore versification in the most difficult metres enhanced the charm of his conversation. He is referred to by Pliny, Quintilian, and Juvenal, and for a time superintended the studies of the young satirist Persius.

Oratory, as may easily be supposed, had well nigh ceased. VOTIENUS MONTa.n.u.s, MAMERCUS SCAURUS, and P. VITELLIUS, all held high positions in the state. Scaurus, in particular, was also of n.o.ble lineage, being the great-grandson of the celebrated chief of the senate. His oratory was almost confined to declamation, but was far above the general level of the time. Careless, and often full of faults, it yet carried his hearers away by its native power and dignity. [14] ASINIUS GALLUS, the son of Pollio, so far followed his father as to take a strong interest in politics, and with filial enthusiasm compared him favourably with Cicero. DOMITIUS AFER also is mentioned by Tacitus as an able but dissolute man, who under a better system might have been a good speaker. A writer of some mark was CREMUTIUS CORDUS, whose eloquent account of the rise of the Empire cost him his life: in direct defiance of the fas.h.i.+onable cant of the day he had called Ca.s.sius ”the last of the Romans.” The higher spirits seemed to take a gloomy pleasure in speaking out before the tyrant, even if it were only with their last breath; more than one striking instance of this is recorded by Tacitus; and though he questions the wisdom of relieving personal indignation by a vain invective, which must bring death and ruin on the speaker and all his family, and in the end only tighten the yoke it tries to shake, yet the intractable pride of these representatives of the old families has something about it to which, human as we are, we cannot refuse our sympathy. The only other prose-writer we need mention is AUFIDIUS Ba.s.sUS, who described the Civil Wars and the German expeditions, and is mentioned with great respect by Tacitus.

Poetry is represented by the fifth book of Manilius, by Phaedrus's _Fables_, and perhaps by the translation of Aratus ascribed to GERMANICUS, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius. This translation, which is both elegant and faithful, and superior to Cicero's in poetical inspiration, has been claimed, but with less probability, for Domitian, who, as is well known, affected the t.i.tle of Germanicus. [15] But the consent of the most ancient critics tends to restore Germanicus Drusus as the author, the t.i.tle _genitor_ applied to Tiberius not being proof positive the other way.

The only writer who mentions PHAEDRUS is Martial, [16] and he only in a single pa.s.sage. The Aesopian beast-fable was a humble form of art peculiarly suited to a period of political and literary depression. Seneca in his _Consolatio ad Polybium_ implies that that imperial favourite had cultivated it with success. Apparently he did not know of Phaedrus; and this fact agrees with the frequent complaints that Phaedrus makes to the effect that he is not appreciated. Of his life we know only what we can gather from his own book. He was born in Pieria, and became the slave of Augustus, who set him free, and seems to have given him his patronage. The poet was proud of his Greek birth, but was brought to Rome at so early an age as to belong almost equally to both nationalities. His poverty [17]

did not secure him from persecution, Seja.n.u.s, ever suspicious and watchful, detected the political allusions veiled beneath the disguise of fable, and made the poet feel his auger. The duration of Phaedrus's career is uncertain. The first two books were all that he published in Tiberius's reign; the third, dedicated to Eutychus, and the fourth to Particulo, Claudius's favourite, clearly show that he continued to write over a considerable time. The date of Book V. is not mentioned, but it can hardly be earlier than the close of Claudius's reign. Thus we have a period of nearly thirty years during which these five short books were produced.

Like all who con over their own compositions, Phaedrus had an unreasonably high opinion of their merit. Literary reputation was his chief desire, and he thought himself secure of it. He echoes the boast so many greater men have made before him, that he is the first to import a form of Greek art; but he limits his imitation to the general scope, reserving to himself the right to vary the particular form in each fable as he thinks fit. [18] The careful way in which he defines at what point his obligations to Aesop cease and his own invention begins, shows him to have had something of the trifler and a great deal of the egotist. His love of condensation is natural, for a fabulist should be short, trenchant, and almost proverbial in his style; but Phaedrus carries these to the point of obscurity and enigma. It seems as if at times he did not see his drift himself. To this fault is akin the constant moralising tone which reflects rather than paints, enforces rather than elicits its lesson. He is himself a small sage, and all his animals are small sages too. They have not the life-like reality of those of Aesop; they are mere lay figures. His technical skill is very considerable; the iambic senarius becomes in his hands an extremely pleasing rhythm, though the occurrence of spondees in the second and fourth place savours of archaic usage. His diction is hardly varied enough to admit of clear reference to a standard, but on the whole it may be p.r.o.nounced nearer to the silver than the golden Latinity, especially in the frequent use of abstract words. His confident predictions of immortality were nearly being falsified by the burning, by certain zealots, of an abbey in France, where alone the MS. existed (1561 A.D.); but Phaedrus, in common with many others, was rescued from the worthy Calvinists, and has since held a quiet corner to himself in the temple of fame.

A poet whose misfortunes were of service to his talent, was POMPONIUS SECUNDUS. His friends.h.i.+p with Aelius Gallus, son to Seja.n.u.s, caused him to be imprisoned during several years. While in this condition he devoted himself to literature, and wrote many tragedies which are spoken well of by Quintilian: ”Eorum (tragic poets) quos viderim longe princeps Pomponius Secundus.” [19] He was an acute rhetorician, and a purist in language. The extant names of his plays are _Aeneas_, and perhaps _Armorum Judicium_ and _Atreus_, but these last two are uncertain. Tragedy was much cultivated during the imperial times; for it formed an outlet for feeling not otherwise safe to express, and it admitted all the ornaments of rhetoric.

Those who regard the tragedies of Seneca as the work of the father, would refer them to this reign, to the end of which the old man's activity lasted, though his energies were more taken up with watching and guiding the careers of his children than with original composition. When Tiberius died (37 A.D.) literature could hardly have been at a lower ebb; but even then there were young men forming their minds and imbibing new canons of taste, who were destined before long--for almost all wrote early--to redeem the age from the charge of dulness, perhaps at too great a sacrifice.

CHAPTER II.

THE REIGNS OF CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, AND NERO (37-68 A.D.).

1. POETS.